I should explain the organization of this website, which is so far only tentative.

I wanted to organize the site by verbs: by things we actually do. And I wanted to use a small group of verbs to reflect who we are in a fairly deep way. I have attempted here to translate a “classic” text about what God’s people do into a contemporary Quaker idiom.

The text is about Jesus’ followers not long after he was executed. Acts 2:42 says that “they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ teaching and in the fellowship, the breaking of bread and the prayers.”

As a Quaker, I understand continuing “in the apostles’ teaching” as both the willingness to listen to the inward Teacher and the willingness to listen to others led by the inward Teacher, contemporary and historical. This includes the Bible and other Spirit-led writings, a long history of faithful actions, and spoken testimony in or out of meeting for worship. We LISTEN to these things, LISTEN for the Spirit’s guidance both directly and indirectly.

“Fellowship” requires gathering. We share our time with each other. We worship and do meeting business, we teach and we learn, we read together, share meeting chores, visit each other’s meetings and homes, and come together for a variety of events from Quakes to MCGM. We GATHER to remember who we are and to celebrate. Quakers also use the word “gather” for the grace of felt unity in God’s presence: sometimes the Spirit gathers us when we GATHER together.

The “breaking of bread” was the shared meal of the early community. Very likely the eucharist developed out of that shared meal practice, but it couldn’t have been that yet–not in that first long summer after Jesus’ execution. We know that this early community shared both material necessities and their stumbling attempts to understand God’s astonishing grace. They shared the things that gave both life and Life. We Quakers also seek to SHARE rightly what we have, as we can–the Light and the earth’s bounty, the things we have been given and the things we have labored to create. We SHARE them with each other, with newcomers and children, with a hungry world.

Finally, that first Christian community persevered in “the prayers.” This probably meant traditional Jewish prayers in the Temple. What can this mean for us, here and now? There is holding in the Light and Meeting for Healing, prayers and clear vision and hard work for a better world, and holding always to the Center. I name this action Hope or Vision or Dream. May we DREAM what God dreams for us, and live together into that DREAM.

So that’s the story of how the menu bar on this small site got the labels LISTEN, GATHER, SHARE, and DREAM. These labels come out of my dream and prayer for MCGM: that we may flourish in faithfulness and in vision, listening like the apostles listened, gathering in holy fellowship, sharing Light and Life, and holding fast to God’s dream for us until we live into its fullness.